Decriminalizing Sex: Where Prostitution Meets Purity Culture
An odd twist in my research on a libertarian theory of reproductive rights and abortion led me to examine how the criminal justice system treats the crime of rape. That examination led somewhere unexpected: a striking correlation between the culture surrounding illicit sex work and evangelical purity culture. I cannot say where any causal relations lie between the two — only that the correlation is real, and that Christians in particular need to pay attention.
This episode breaks down the legal distinctions between sex work, prostitution, and human trafficking, and why those distinctions matter. The connection to trafficking is complicated by trauma. I reviewed Dr. Gabor Maté’s work on trauma in the documentary The Wisdom of Trauma, which addresses why women enter prostitution — and the evidence points consistently to trauma as the root cause.
That raises a principled disagreement: when dealing with traumatized women in sex work, should the state use legal force to rescue them, penalize them, or intervene only in response to direct violence against them?
There may be another way — one that runs through education about sex and intimate relationships rather than through criminal enforcement. I’ve found a strong correlation between the view of women held by johns and pimps and the view of women embedded in evangelical purity culture. Have evangelicals unwittingly contributed to the conditions that produce sex trafficking and prostitution? I think there is good reason to believe American evangelicalism has contributed to the very problems some evangelicals are now trying to fix.
The popular response among Christian anti-trafficking organizations is the Nordic model: criminalize the buyers, not the sellers. Make the men behave through the threat of legal force. But economics does not work that way, and the evidence from countries that have implemented the Nordic model bears this out — demand does not decrease; antisocial behavior increases. I explain why this is predictable, and why decriminalizing sex work is necessary if we are going to improve how society and law treat women and sexual violence.
Disclaimer: Supporting decriminalization is not an endorsement of sex work as morally legitimate. I hold to a Christian sexual ethic — sex is designed by God for heterosexual marriage — while also arguing that evangelical purity culture is an unbiblical distortion of that ethic.
Main Points of Discussion
| 00:00 | Introduction Ep. 292: Decriminalizing Prostitution: Can Christians Support it? |
| 01:45 | Definitions: ‘sex work’, ‘prohibition’, ‘prostitution’, trafficking’ |
| 04:04 | Why is it important to understand these distinctions |
| 05:46 | Difference between ‘decriminalization‘ and ‘legalization’ |
| 07:58 | Explanation of legalization; Nevada vs Rhode Island |
| 09:08 | The feminist argument against decriminalization (Nordic model) |
| 09:55 | Clip from Julie Bindell’s opening statement at the Soho Forum |
| 13:43 | “The bleakest view of masculinity” |
| 14:50 | Do we know how many sex workers are trafficking vs voluntarily participating? |
| 16:24 | Clip from “Sold in America” – a “John’s” view of women in purchasing sex |
| 17:41 | Evangelical Purity Culture Detour |
| 18:09 | Does ‘rape culture’ exist? |
| 19:28 | Nancy Pearcy: how “nominal” evangelical men skew divorce and domestic violence data in the church |
| 23:01 | What does evangelical purity culture have to do with decriminalizing prostitution? |
| 27:08 | What the so-called “experts” told evangelical women about how to have a good Christian marriage |
| 27:33 | Quotes cited by Shelia Wray Gregorie’s, The Great Sex Rescue |
| 31:55 | Ontological distinctions between men and women don’t require a predator/prey relationship |
| 33:39 | Connecting the stigma of sex in purity culture to the stigma found in legal prohibition of prostitution |
| 34:21 | Legal denial of basic human rights – No Humans Involved |
| 36:22 | The unjust handling of sexual violence by our criminal justice system 40% of police officers perpetrate domestic violence in their own homes. |
| 37:41 | Are victims of rape stigmatized because of prostitution, or is prostitution stigmatized because of certain views about women, already discussed? (Connection to spiritual manipulation of religious values) |
| 41:57 | The perpetual victim status of women – propagated by feminists and patriarchalists |
| 43:17 | How do we change society to value women and children, abhor the evils done against them, and still maintain a system of justice? |
| 43:59 | Misunderstanding economic demand is resulting with failure and unintended consequences |
| 46:39 | In countries that have the Nordic model, no decrease in demand but an increase in antisocial behavior |
| 50:18 | Compare to New Zealand – decriminalized sex work in 2007 |
| 51:05 | Why Christians should care about decriminalizing sex work – even while we don’t endorse it. |
| 52:12 | Let our yes mean yes, and our no mean no – justice requires it. |
| 52:58 | Concluding thoughts – what decriminalizing prostitution means for Christian teaching about a biblical sexual ethic. |
Featured Guest Bio | Melissa Broudo
Melissa Sontag Broudo, JD, MPH, is the co-founder and co-director of the Sharmus Outlaw Advocacy and Rights (SOAR) Institute. She has been part of the sex-worker-rights and harm-reduction movements since the late 1990s, co-founding SOAR to further policy, advocacy, and capacity building efforts that support the rights of sex workers and survivors of human trafficking.
FAQs
What does decriminalizing prostitution mean, and how is it different from legalization? Decriminalization removes criminal penalties for sex workers without creating a state-regulated industry. Legalization brings prostitution under government licensing and regulation, as in Nevada, which typically creates a two-tier system where unlicensed sex workers remain criminalized. Decriminalization, as practiced in New Zealand since 2007, treats sex work as labor and extends basic legal protections to workers without requiring state oversight of the industry.
What is the Nordic model, and why does Kerry Baldwin oppose it? The Nordic model criminalizes the purchase of sex while decriminalizing the sale. It is favored by many Christian anti-trafficking organizations as a way to reduce demand without penalizing women. Baldwin argues the model fails on economic grounds: criminalization does not reduce demand, it relocates it. Evidence from countries that have implemented it shows no decrease in demand and measurable increases in antisocial behavior and risk to sex workers.
What is the connection between evangelical purity culture and sex trafficking? Baldwin identifies a striking correlation between the view of women held by those who purchase sex and the view of women embedded in evangelical purity culture, specifically a framework that assigns women instrumental value relative to male desire rather than inherent dignity as persons. She does not claim a direct causal relationship but argues the correlation is significant enough that Christians cannot ignore it, and that American evangelicalism may have contributed to the cultural conditions it now seeks to remedy.
Does supporting decriminalization mean endorsing sex work as morally acceptable? No. Baldwin holds to a Christian sexual ethic and explicitly does not endorse sex work as morally legitimate. The argument is that criminal law is the wrong instrument for every moral wrong, and that criminalizing sex work produces measurable harm to the women it claims to protect while failing to address the underlying conditions that produce trafficking and coercion.
How does this episode connect to Kerry Baldwin’s research on abortion and rape? The episode grew directly out of Baldwin’s research on a libertarian theory of reproductive rights. Developing a principled libertarian account of rape required examining how the law treats sex work and trafficking. The purity culture connection emerged from that research as an unexpected but significant parallel.
What is the libertarian framework for thinking about sex work? Libertarianism grounds its analysis in self-ownership and the non-aggression principle. Voluntary sex work between consenting adults does not constitute aggression and falls outside the legitimate scope of civil enforcement. Trafficking and coerced prostitution constitute aggression and warrant civil remedy. The key distinction is between the two, one that criminalization actively obscures by treating all sex workers as either victims or criminals regardless of their actual situation.
Resource Links
- Mere Liberty Monthly Memberships
- The laws that sex workers really want | Juno Mac
- Deacon pleads guilty to child porn charges
